->> I was wondering if people were happy with their blue dot Canon 1D Mark 3?

I got my Mark 3 back (for the sub mirror repair) and I swear it was better before I shipped it in. I just finished two shoots where the focus was so unreliable that I had to use my 5D to make sure I had images in focus.

Also, the added variable of the micro adjustment is just another thing for me to obsess about. I am not sure if the -10 adjustment is correct. On some frames it looks right, other frames are so out of focus that I am sure it is incorrect.

I do need to somehow get rid of this body, but before I do, I want to find out if the blue dot Mark 3 cameras were operating well. Should I just go back to the Mark 2?

->> Preston,
I have the exact same problem I called CPS and they sent a pick up for the camera to be looked at again. No matter what they say the camera is still not right i will not use it until Canon can admit that it is still not fixed. If they actually did a test in the field with it they might notice a problem and believe us.

->> I'm hearing it alot in the field at international level that it's still not fixed, blue dot or not. I don't wish to add fuel to the fire, but I was hearing about the MkIII's focus problems well before it became common knowledge.
Again, the Olympics will be the true test.

I have been back and forth with Canon for almost a year. I have a 600mm that amounts to a paperweight. No, I didn't move up to a Mark III because I didn't trust the amount of changes that came with the body. I bought a Mark IIN while they were still available. Nice files when they are in focus...

Ever think about why they tout the "burst rate" so much? If you shoot 40 frames at least 20 will be in focus. Some of us don't subscribe to the "machine gun" mentality.

Frankly, 6 frames per second was more than enough for me...

With that being said, it has been a constant fight with two Mark IIs and one Mark IIN. The focusing problem has existed for years. The heat vapors that come off of sport turf (synthetic) fields affect any lens with strong compression.

Yes, the gear has been back to CPS. The Mark IIN was supposedly "matched" to the 600. Funny, I never had to "match" lenses prior to digital. Every time something goes wrong you are told, "Send it to CPS". Guess what? That costs money and time. When I was shooting film, I saw CPS maybe 5 times in 15 years. Most of the time it was to replace the brushes in the USM motors. Now, I look in my cases and it is tough to pick out what equipment hasn't been to CPS since I went digital.

The sad part is I have put my old EOS 1VHS (film body for those who don't remember) against my three digital bodies and the film body has a better "in focus" ratio that the digital bodies do. Roughly 86% in focus with the film body compared to roughly 61% with the digital bodies.

Unfortunately, Canon has developed a "bunker mentality" and it has really become an us against them and they know we need them.

->> I might be the only voice in the wilderness, but I've been using the Blue Dot for three months, and it's great. Of course, I had to return the first Blue Dot I received because of a shutter failure, but the one I have now is terrific. Occasionally, it will slip out of focus in a sequence, but it's actually better than my Mark II's focusing in low light. I would say I get less than 10% out of focus shots. Granted, I haven't shot a lot outdoors in bright sunlight yet, but I shot a track meet Saturday, and I had very few out of focus frames.

->> I am satisfied with my 1D3, got it last July, was an early serial, never had major problems, sent it in for the submirror repair in Jan, came back with the white dot, what minor issues I had are now gone. AI Servo tracks just fine, One Shot is spot on, and it focuses better in low light than any camera I have ever had.

I have the blue dot and I can safely say that I am making action images with the Mark 3 I could not have made with the Mark 2, BUT, I am also missing images with the Mark 3, that I would have made with the Mark 2. So go figure.

The cleaner images for me at high iso is really the clincher for me. I'm happy with the camera for now, but won't buy another one until there is some sort of final answer on this.

Obviously, there is some sort of problem which Canon needs to address. It would be great to get sportsshooter to do an interview with a Canon rep and see what they have to say.

->> I have a blue dot 1D3 that I bought in early Feburary and so far I have not had any issues. Everything I have shot, the focus has been dead on. I also agree the focusing in low-light is great. We will see how it goes when I shoot in bright sunlight.

->> I have 2 MKIII's. One is a 522XXX serial # bought in June of 2007. The other is a Blue Dot that I purchased in November, 2007.

Up until recently I had been preaching that this was the BEST camera that I had ever used. Saturday, I shot a baseball game where I was forced to shoot extreme side lighting at 4:00pm in bright sunshine. The MKIII's performed horribly. Less than 50% keepers. on most of the misses, the MKIII threw the focus about a foot in front of the focus plane making all the images so soft they were unusable. I was shooting with a 400 f2.8 so the DOF was already pretty shallow.

When I was able to get the sun to my back and the players were lit fully frontal, the MKIII performed brilliantly. But side lighting or back lighting, it was a nightmare. My MKIIN would rarely miss in any of these circumstances.

Now, if you take the MKIII's indoors for basketball, gymnastics or shoot nighttime sports (i.e. football. baseball) the MKIII is the BEST body that I ever used, hands down. I just don't think that I should be forced to change bodies to get the shots I need depending on the amount of daylight or dark that I must deal with.

You made the most compelling argument about the "true" success of digital equipment.

I don't know if you get better quality images using digital cameras as opposed to film cameras. The biggest edge of a digital camera is that you can produce and transmit photos in a very short amount of time.. There are no delays due to having to develop film.

My EOS 3 is functioning as it did seven years ago. I've not had to rush out to buy the next higher megapixel offering in order to stay on the leading edge of technology.

Heck, the T90s that I bought 20 years ago can still crank out good images. Those boys won't ever need a "sub mirror fix"..

Canon made a production decision some 20 years ago when it decided that the EOS system was the way to go. A lot of old Canon shooters, myself included, never got rid of the FD lens system. My old 300 2.8 FD lens can still crank out great images. It will never be unserviceable due to focusing motors no longer being available. Sure, the old manual focus lens doesn't allow me to shoot as fast or accurately as a 300 2.8 EF USM lens, but I don't have the headaches of worrying about the lens ending up in a closet because replacement focusing motors are no longer being produced.

In theory, Canon's had a lot of great ideas, but in practice, there have been quite a few bugs in the works. If Canon keeps shooting itself in the foot over issues such as the Mark III's focusing problems, they'll have to deal with the fallout of dissatisfied customers.

Me? Well, I'll just go back to shooting with the EOS 3 and EOS 1 film cameras. I'll be slower than my peers, but I won't have to deal with doubts about whether the camera will produce at crunch time.

->> John, a Canon rep is going to tell SS the company line if he wishes to remain employed.
I really feel for you guys with the bad MKIIIs. Must be incredibly frustrating to be told by Canon that everything is great.

I agree with you...but have you priced the cost of a new 400/2.8, 300/2.8, 70-200/2.8, 24-70/2.8, and 16-35/2.8 (or whatever the Nikon equivalent is)??

I did a shoot a few weeks ago with another photographer...He had a D3 and I had a Mark III. He was shooting at ISO25600 (or whatever it is); who do you think had cleaner images, more shadow details, better color saturation, and super sharp images that you could see on the LCD?

Let me say though, that I had one of the Mark IIIs that required the sub-mirror assembly fix. It was tough to use before the fix. And, now it's much better. I'd put it on par with my original Mark IIs. Do I think it could be better? Yes.

I am buying a Blue Dot Mark III? No! One of them is enough to deal with...

I continue to shoot with my trusty 1D because Canon hasn't proven to me they can create a new body that works in my world - hot temperatures and bright sunny days.

Yes, the 1D has more noise. It's a bit smaller image. It eats batteries. It's also fantastic when focusing - I shot somewhere around 800 images last weekend and tossed maybe 50 for focus problems, and most of the rejects were my own fault because I didn't have the sensor where it should have been. (I can only shoot for a few hours in the sun before my brain starts to fade.) The images I kept are tack-sharp. I zoomed in at 100% in Lightroom and was amazed.

I've decided I'd rather buy one or two more gently used 1D bodies, send them to CPS for a total recondition and shutter replacement and have the focus recalibrated, and run those until Canon gets their act together.

Canon has no incentive to release better designs as long as there's a feeding frenzy when a new body ships. If everyone had a wait-and-see attitude Canon would make sure it was perfect from day one otherwise their products would sit on shelves.

Like I said, I'm really disappointed in Canon. I'd love to have a lower-noise sensor and better battery life, but I won't and can't sacrifice image sharpness for those.

I think that I HAVE to switch if the images are unacceptable.
Your professional reputation is at stake every time you you work. To switch is expensive, but the alternative may be losing clients - a far more damaging and costly scenario.

I'm seriously thinking of buying a Nikon D3 and 70-200 to use along with my Canon and long glass. Not a full switchover, but partial. I have never been happy with the Canons and the 70-200/2.8, so that's why I am thinking of going in this direction. Those that I know that use the D3 are very happy and they say that some 95% of what they shoot (action) with the D3 and 70-200 is sharp.

That's good enough for me. Except for strobes (action), I can say that overall my Canon digital with 70-200/2.8 is about 30-40% sharp/focused. I've used two 70-200/2.8's that I haven't been happy with and am now pretty much using my 70-200/4.0.

That said, the Mark III of mine is better after the mirror fix, but as one of the earlier posters said, you make pictures you wouldn't have made with the Mark II/Mark II "N" but you also miss stuff you would NOT have missed with the Mark IIs. It simply should not be this way.

Add me to the group switching to Nikon, the D300 isn't perfect, but it is outperforming any Mark II or Mark IIn I have owned. I'm going to complete my switchover before the coming football season.

Canon has proven to me over the past few years that they can't be relied on to correct any issues I have with the cameras. It seems every time I send in a Canon body it comes back softer. I pine for the days of the 1v but those days are never coming back.

I also felt my reputation was at stake, and I needed to switch to save my career.

->> You can also add me to the group switching. I'm adding a d300,70-200VR and 24-70 to my kit. I will then decide if I go all the way with the longer glass.
I was shooting the Nikon F100 and F5 up to 2003 before going digital with the Canon 1D. I think I'll be happy to be back.

->> I've had no problems with my two MkIII's, but I've only shot with them once in the kind of extreme heat people are saying causes problems. In that situation (NCAA baseball - 90+ degrees in the shade), the AF worked perfectly for me. I've shot multiple events in 80+ degree heat and it's worked well.

I really do miss Nikon gear and glass. It is a lot nicer to work with, all things considered. I wish Nikon had released the D3 about four years ago when I dumped my D2H-based Nikon kit for 1DMkII's. I don't regret the decision - I have a hundred thousand low-noise, 8mp images in my archives instead of a hundred thousand godawful noisy 4.1mp images...and CPS is like an oasis compared to the NPS of four years ago.

But at this point the MkIII's are doing well for me - and if I had the kind of spare cash it would take to switch back I'd probably invest it in more video gear, all things considered.

->> I'll chime in against the majority. I'm enjoying my 1DIII quite a bit : ) responsive, better on noise than 1DII's, etc. Switch back to Nikon? I think I would miss the 24 1.4, 45 t/s, 85 1.2, and other unique primes Nikon does not have. They have some equivalents, but they are not quite the same.

If work switches to Nikon I'm sure I'll like em a lot. but then they will manually focus the opposite direction of my video gear : ( and that just makes the video and still mix even more difficult than it already is.

->> For those stating the original 1D is better (sharper), do you mean you have a higher percentage of in focus images from a sequence or that there is just more detail, more sharpness in a 1D file?

I'd like to point out that at 4MP vs. 10MP, there is a significant difference in resolution, which may work to the 1D's favor in certain ways. For example, it will not resolve slight AF inaccuracy the same way as a Mark III, nor will it reveal lens defects as readily, or camera shake, or subtle subject motion. Combinations of these factors can lead to the impression of better, sharper, more consistent focus. If the same thing was photographed with the two cameras using the same lens & composition, then compared on screen at 100%, of course the Mark III file will look like it's falling apart in comparison. You're effectively zooming in more, revealing those nasty factors glossed over by the 1D's lower resolution. Reduce the Mark III file to the same screen size and they should be pretty similar. Or print them at the same size...

I believe this is partly the reason everyone (including me) seems to be becoming more and more critical of image quality from successive generations of digital cameras. We evaluate images in a way we did not with lower resolution files or even compared to editing negs and slides with a loupe.

I still own a 1D and have owned the II, IIN and now the III. I'm very familiar with each camera's characteristics. There is definitely something different about the 1D files. Seemingly crisper, yet perhaps not as "lush" and less tolerant to aggressive adjustments. But is there actually more detail in 1D files? I would say no, especially not if the subject isn't full frame. I base this not just on recollection from a few years ago, but from the recent re-processing of numerous 1D stock images. The Mark III certainly has issues, but the quality of the images files themselves is not one of them. Shooting regularly at ISOs 800-3200 on the Mark III, I would never go back to the 1D for that reason alone.

One of my jobs is prepress for a Nikon equipped newspaper. I've processed thousands of Nikon files ranging from the D1 through to the D2X and D200 (D300s are coming, unless the budget is axed). I can't honestly say I see anything from those files, RAW and Jpeg, that compels me to switch from Canon. Will the D300 offer anything significantly better? My hunch is no, but perhaps those who have moved from the D2/D200 to the D300 can offer an opinion. And the D3? Good question... but here is something Rob Galbraith wrote:

"....while there are differences in the appearance of image graininess - Canon's grain pattern is tighter - there's no doubt that the D3 produces a less noisy, higher quality file at ISO 3200 and beyond.

On the other hand, EOS-1D Mark III files at any ISO - especially CR2s processed through Canon's Digital Photo Professional - are generally slightly crisper and more detailed. This could be because we're looking at photos taken with preproduction Nikon equipment, but experience has taught us that production gear is likely to show the same image quality traits."

Preston,

Try to find out more about the D300 files from your friend, such as camera settings for sharpening, noise reduction, or if he did anything with them in Photoshop and consider those factors relative to how you have your cameras set up and your post shoot workflow before making any big decisions.

How do you work with the Canon files? RAW or Jpegs from the camera? Jpegs from the Mark II to the present have never been truly sharp. The Mark III is better, but to really extract the maximum sharpness from the camera, you need to work from RAW. Even if you add sharpening to the in-camera Jpegs, they will never match the RAW files (I've tried). I can understand the workflow issues this presents for sports/news photography on deadline, but for commercial/corporate/editorial non deadline work, RAW is definitely the way to go.

Granted, if the Mark III can't even get the images in focus in the first place, then there's not much point in debating file quality itself. It's the big question mark hanging over the III.

Oh, and try the 70-200 f/4 IS if you're not happy with the 70-200 2.8. I love it. It's sharper, has faster, seemingly more precise AF, better contrast and much better flare control in backlit situations... I haven't used the 2.8 since I got the f/4. I agree totally with Joe's comments about the 2.8 version.

->> NPS sent me a D3, 200/2 and 70-200/2.8 VR prior to Tyson American Cup for evaluation but being I've never owned Nikon stuff before, wasn't brave enough to use them for the main event. I did spent more time with the Nikon gear afterwards and for what it's worth, below are my initial unscientific impressions of the D3 + 70-200 compared to the 1D and 1Ds MarkIIIs.

- Initial AF locking is as fast, if not faster, than the MKIII indoors. I used the 9 point dynamic AF (I guess the equivalent of single point with expansion on the 1D).
- Once AF locks on, 99% of the time the entire sequence is in focus on the D3.
- Leo colors I had problem tracking before with the MKIII, such as all pink, wasn't an issue with the D3
- Image quality below ISO3200 between 1D MKIII, D3 and 1Ds MKIII are essentially equal
- Out of camera jpgs sharpness are similar between all 3.
- At ISO6400 image quality of D3 > 1D MKIII > 1Ds MKIII, and I'm constantly at ISO6400 at most of the meets I cover.
- Auto White Balance on the D3 seems a lot cooler than the 1D's.
- Everything is backwards on the Nikon. The zoom ring turns the opposite direction and that takes a while to get used to.
- After shooting full frame it's difficult to go back to 1.5 crop. You realize how much of the sensor you're NOT using when in 1.5x mode. 9FPS at FX is fast enough for me
- The viewfinder on the 1Ds is brighter and bigger than the D3
- 12MP is plenty for sports but for studio portrait work 1Ds with 22MP is still the KING!
- The ability to create folders in camera out of sequence is nice. You couldn't create 200EOS1D without creating the first 199 folders on the 1D.
- D3 with 70-200 is lighter than 1D with 70-200
- love the LCD on the D3
- Did I mention I love the LCD on the D3?

->> still no problems with my two mk III's. had them since last june. and I can truthfully say after a full season of basketball in one of the worst college gyms in the country (UNC's Carmichael) I had more photos than ever before in focus and great quality. the scary thing was I went back into the archive and grabbed a few photos from last year's season (shot with my D2H's) and couldn't believe the difference in quality. no wonder my sports picture editor was always bitching at me about the difference in quality of my photos and the guys with the mk II's. this year not a peep out of him, except...wow these photos are sharp. one question I have after reading some of these posts...is where do you guys who keep switching back and forth between systems get your money? if ya'll have that much spare cash gimme a call, I'll send you my address and you can send me some dough...8)

->> Ron, you make some good points about apparent focus when looking at images at 100%.

For several years and on several different sites I've been pointing out that higher res sensors can't be judged at 100% because of the higher pixel count and each pixel being less significant in the overall image. I figured that out when we got 20D bodies for our backup cameras. I remember hearing comments saying we had to use a lot more sharpening to get good images because the sensor was different - in my experience we just needed to downsize for final output and apply the same amount of sharpening.

People get mislead trying to judge a camera's focus accuracy using someone else's jpegs vs. their RAW/CR2/TIFF files when the cameras could have applied various degrees of sharpening to compensate for their anti-alias filter. The RAW-type files need equivalent post-production sharpening to look as crisp as a jpeg does right out of the camera. The pixel sizes and effect of the AA filter affect the images when they compare a 1D Mk I vs. 1D Mk II vs. 1D Mk III vs. D3 vs.... It's always an apples to oranges comparison unless they can normalize those differences.

Still, I think that people like Rob Galbraith and Bert and Thomas know the issues and how to differentiate between apples and oranges. They've reported seeing problems with focus accuracy. I haven't seen a "We got the latest fix and things are resolved" message from anyone. And they are not saying things like "Yes there are focus problems but we can work with the images by downsizing them.", but instead are saying they're not happy yet so I gotta think the problem isn't just in the mind of less-technically adept photographers and the fix isn't just in additional sharpening or downsizing, but remains endemic in the body itself.

As far as my feelings about the accuracy of my 1D... it was just adjusted by CPS and came back dead-on; It's a noticeable improvement from where it used to be. Both RAW and jpegs are showing crisper detail. Could I get a comparable image shooting with a Mk III and downsizing it? Maybe, but I can't see spending the money just to experiment and then be where I am now image-wise. There might be improvements with low-light noise, but in my shooting I can't usually use ambient light from the arenas - they're too dark to stop the action so I have to go with strobes anyway and then the 1D's sync speed and CCD have some advantages.

I've learned the hard way to have a wait-and-see attitude which kept me from jumping in immediately. I'll keep my money until Canon can get a version of the Mk III out that people consistently say is "fixed and working right" instead of "it works but it's not what I expect."

->> I finaly picked up a Mark III about a month ago. All I can say is WOW... I've shot Tennis, Golf, Hockey, and Track with it so far. With just about every natural lighting you can think of... Bright, back-lit, face on, cloudy, rainy, night... I think I've tested the camera enough to say I love it.
I've got no complaints what so ever... So far.
If I continue to get good results, my second one will be on the way in July or August in time for Football.

->> My "blue dot-upc" body was sent back to the dealer after one November night NFL game.
All over the place, the Mark II N's were sharper than the Mark III new-out of the box.
I have followed Preston, and MANY other professionals and am now using the D3. It does what is says it will once you configure it to your style of shooting.
Best of luck to all,
Craig Melvin

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